Big TZ bridge project comes with improper commuting bills

The state Department of Transportation improperly paid travel reimbursement of almost $321,000 to eight DOT employees assigned to the Tappan Zee Bridge project, an audit released on Tuesday said.

The DOT workers got reimbursed for their commute to work in Tarrytown, even after an internal audit found the bills were inappropriate, according to the outside audit by Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli team.

The matter has tax consequences, the audit says.

DOT may have failed to report nearly $227,000 in travel expenses to the proper taxing authorities for from 2009 to 2011. According to IRS guidance, reimbursements for commuting are taxable as income.

“DOT needs to make sure its managers are aware of state travel rules and enforce them,” DiNapoli said. “After an internal audit identified the improper payments, DOT continued to make them, even with multiple opportunities to remedy the situation. DOT needs to do a better job protecting taxpayer dollars and ensuring its employees are not paid for routine commuting costs.”

The audit found that DOT assigned eight employees to work at the Tarrytown office on the bridge project, but incorrectly designated Poughkeepsie as each employee’s official station. Because the project office is about 55 miles from Poughkeepsie, and more than 35 miles from each employee’s home and official station, DOT inappropriately allowed these employees to claim car mileage and toll costs for their commute from their homes to Tarrytown and back each day.

In March 2011, a DOT internal audit report questioned the official station designation of the eight employees. The audit further concluded they should not have been in travel status when they traveled from their homes to their usual place of work in Tarrytown. For the period from September 2007 through May 2010, the internal audit identified improper travel reimbursements totaling $219,050 that were made to the eight employees.

An analysis of time and travel data by DiNapoli’s auditors found that seven Tappan Zee Bridge project employees continued to work at the Tarrytown office through September 2011, but DOT failed to act on the internal audit’s findings and continued to designate Poughkeepsie as the employees’ official station and improperly paid them for their regular commuting costs.

DOT officials acknowledged the official station designation of Poughkeepsie was incorrect and attributed the problem to administrative error. According to DOT officials, pertinent managers were unaware of state travel guidance and the agency lacked sufficient formal policy for the designation of employees’ official station.

No recoupment is planned, but the employees’ W2s will be changed and they will have to pay taxes on the income, OSC said.

Update: Here’s a statement from DOT spokesman Beau Duffy:

The approval of these expenses were made by NYSDOT managers who were part of the previous Department administration, and are no longer with NYSDOT. When Commissioner McDonald discovered the issue, she instituted a new policy and multi-level approvals process be put in place to ensure that this situation is never repeated. The Department of Transportation is committed to ensuring that State travel rules are strictly followed, and any approved travel reimbursement is in the best interests of the State.

TU, please do not use the acronym “DOT” and the word “management” in the same article. If you continue to do so, the fraternity of “Good Ole Boyz” might suffer the indignity of being placed on Double Secret Probation(DSP). Once on DSP, the boyz running their “outside jobs” and setting themselves for future consultant work from their state desks might come under the glare of the “further scrutiny” spotlight.

Over recent years many, many experienced HR people retired from state service and were not replaced because of hiring freezes. One possible exception are the HR staff servicing the governor and his band of minstrels. God forbid they don’t get reimbursed in a timely manner.

Paul & Elmer … I think you’re on the right track. Based solely on what is reported here, this sounds like fake ado over nothing. If the 8 folks were temporarily reassigned and made to drive longer miles on toll roads every day for nearly 3 years using their personal cars to do the state’s business, they should be fairly reimbursed.

Flambo … not a very good assessment, and little understanding of what it takes to get a large infrastructure project off the ground. Lots of effort is required long before shovels hit the ground.

DOT’s response is not credible. Travel restrictions under this GUV are so tight as to not allow travel in most cases. Forget the money for a second, and focus on the failure of DOT to correctly report these payments to the IRS. Forget the money for a second, and focus on the fact that DOT falsified the work station….AND that the employees also signed vouchers which falsified the work station. Fraud? yup. Oh, now focus on the money, DOT overpaid employees >$200K, and DOT is just going to let it ride? So would that be corruption or incompetence?

People commute to their jobs everyday and are not reimbursed by their employer (Cobleskill to Albany or Kingston to Albany is more common than you might think).

Tolls? From Poughkeepsie take the Taconic to the Saw Mill to Tarrytown. If these people were not being reimbursed maybe they would better plan the cost of their commute. Poughkeepsie and Tarrytown are on the same side of the Hudson–no need to cross a bridge (except the one you are building).

Well most of you are hitting the tip of the target but not hitting the bullseye!!! My opinion would be that each of these employees were hand selected for this assignment based on their particular expertise in a certain engineering discipline or environmental knowledge. Remember that this is The Governor Andrew Cuomo Memorial Tappan Zee Bridge by design & named by so many of us here, each one of the 8 were totally approved by The Proverbial 2nd Floor as so many refer to it, so therefore, these expenses were taken into account well before hand, but Handy Andy will spare no expense for his signature project. Of course now there will be some changes, but sheep that are blasting this group of 8, how about Andy handing Peter Sanderson a $340,000 year salary plus benefits plus I bet he gets a ‘carte blanche’ expense account to be the EIC of this project. It is one man deals like this that cost us way more but Andy and obviously the comptroller are hiding him and his money and once again targeting the ‘little guy’, the proverbial rank and file state employee!!!

This is just the tip of the iceberg. With this administration most of the cabinet members and agency executive staff members live in NYC, but their official work station is Albany. How many meetings are scheduled and fabricated in essence in NYC on Thursday and Fridays so that those executive staff members can commute back home downstate and work in agency NYC offices. It’s wrong, but no one puts a stop to it.